MORGANTOWN – Attorney General Patrick Morrisey held a town hall meeting at Mylan Park Wednesday afternoon as part of his visit to the area.
He opened with a recap on his litigation regarding opioids and federal energy mandates. He also talked about vaccine mandates, which was the chief interest of the audience during the Q&A portion.
On mandates, he said, “ We know that there are a lot of people rightfully very upset with what is going on. … I don’t think we should have vaccine mandates.” Federal mandates, including President Biden’s employer mandate that will be implemented through new OSHA rule, are illegal and should be stopped.
Morrisey said he and 23 other AGs will go to court as soon the OSHA rule is finalized – which isn’t happening quickly, as Biden is slow walking it.
“We’ve been working, doing our research for weeks,” Morrisey said. “We’ve been on phone calls with all the AGs. We have a strategy in place. We’re ready to go. … OSHA was never intended to operate like this.”
He also opposes mandates from employers, he said. “In a civil society … I think you try to persuade and educate, not mandate.” Sticking to science and data is more likely to get you the outcome you want. Biden, on the other hand, set up more national division.
People will be losing jobs over mandates, he said. “We don’t need to lose so many employees at this stage in time here in West Virginia. Use a little reason, don’t try to use brute force.”
One of the questions from the audience concerned vaccine passports cropping up in some other states.
Morrisey commented, “This is really getting absurd.” Passports will be challenged. Restrictions on the right to travel fall under a very high level of scrutiny based on what is the least invasive approach to accomplish the goal.
It’s trickier for federal mandates on federal employees, he said, because the government will be treated like any other employer who has rights in its area of oversight.
But the 24 AGs can’t sue over every single issue, he said. They are looking to see where they have standing.
Morrisey took a question on school mask mandates. The mom said masks should be parents’ choice.
He said that the governor has delegated mask mandates to local authorities, and that ultimately falls to a county commission which can override the board of health or school board.
Another audience members asked how Morrisey plans to help health care workers who will lose their jobs at the end of October and beginning of November for refusing vaccines.
Morrisey said labor issues full under the governor’s office and the state Labor Department. As AG, he can’t represent individuals. But individuals and their attorneys can use the 21-page legal opinion he published on Sept. 10 as a framework for their challenges.
He reminded the audience that there are no state government-issued mandates in West Virginia. The mandates are from the federal side, which the state is fighting, and from private employers.
Returning to that topic following a similar question, Morrisey said employees can cite religious and medical exceptions to vaccine requirements. The employer has the right to ask for those exceptions. Cautioning that he wasn’t offering legal advice, he said employees should articulate those and not just quit and end the conversation as they pursue their legal options.
Morrisey referred several times to his Sept. 21 opinion to use as a legal starting point for challenging a mandate. At the end of the opinion, he urges the Legislature to take several steps to protect individual liberty interests:
— Preclude vaccine mandates for some or all employees;
— Bar governments from imposing vaccine passport requirements or bar such passport requirements outright;
— Ensure that employment-related policies contain, at a minimum, exceptions for those with religious objections and other objections, such as those of a medical or conscientious nature;
— Implement a religious or conscientious objector exception for compulsory school vaccinations.
Citing a court precedent that says potent constraints on overreaching governmental intrusions are appropriate, Morrisey wrote, “As many other states have already recognized, an anti-passport, anti-mandate law could helpfully serve as one such constraint – all at a time when individual liberty has too often fallen by the wayside. We strongly implore the Legislature to act.”
TWEET David Beard @dbeardtdp EMAIL dbeard@dominionpost.com
